by Dave Philipps

Former Air Force Cadet Eric Thomas

[As erstwhile 'allies' of the U.S. (e.g. the Kurds), et ux have learned through hard experience, the American government doesn't make a reliable 'friend' and native Americans can tell many tales of its promises. Ukraine General Peter Krasnov of the Don Cossacks was promised refuge by the WWII western allies after his partisans fought hard against communist partisans and soviets alike only to be turned over to Stalin upon the latter's demand at the war's end to meet either certain death summarily or in the Gulag. U.S. authorities unsuccessfully prosecuted Imelda Marcos shortly after her husband's death--a man who had been all but an American puppet head of the Phillipines. The WWII Polish resistance, the pre-WWII ship of Jewish fools seeking asylum who America shunned in their hour of need--the list of those who foolishly placed their trust in U.S. blandishments is extensive. Perhaps the following story strikes a little closer to home: How our government treats those naive enough to accept its offers of intrigue and 'protection'.]

Facing pressure to combat drug use and sexual assault at the Air Force Academy, the Air Force has created a secret system of cadet informants to hunt for misconduct among students.

Cadets who attend the publicly-funded academy near Colorado Springs must pledge never to lie. But the program pushes some to do just that: Informants are told to deceive classmates, professors and commanders while snapping photos, wearing recording devices and filing secret reports.

For one former academy student, becoming a covert government operative meant not only betraying the values he vowed to uphold, it meant being thrown out of the academy as punishment for doing the things the Air Force secretly told him to do.

Eric Thomas, 24, was a confidential informant for the Office of Special Investigations, or OSI — a law enforcement branch of the Air Force. OSI ordered Thomas to infiltrate academy cliques, wearing recorders, setting up drug buys, tailing suspected rapists and feeding information back to OSI. In pursuit of cases, he was regularly directed by agents to break academy rules.

“It was exciting. And it was effective,” said Thomas, a soccer and football player who received no compensation for his informant work. “We got 15 convictions of drugs, two convictions of sexual assault. We were making a difference. It was motivating, especially with the sexual assaults. You could see the victims have a sense of peace.”

Through it all, he thought OSI would have his back. But when an operation went wrong, he said, his handlers cut communication and disavowed knowledge of his actions, and watched as he was kicked out of the academy.

“It was like a spy movie,” said Thomas, who was expelled in April, a month before graduation. “I worked on dozens of cases, did a lot of good, and when it all hit the fan, they didn’t know me anymore.”

The Air Force’s top commander and key members of the academy’s civilian oversight board claim they have no knowledge of the OSI program. The Gazette confirmed the program, which has not been reported in the media through interviews with multiple informants, phone and text records, former OSI agents, court filings and documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

The records show OSI uses FBI-style tactics to create informants. Agents interrogate cadets for hours without offering access to a lawyer, threaten them with prosecution, then coerce them into helping OSI in exchange for promises of leniency they don’t always keep. OSI then uses informants to infiltrate insular cadet groups, sometimes encouraging them to break rules to do so. When finished with informants, OSI takes steps to hide their existence, directing cadets to delete emails and messages, misleading Air Force commanders and Congress, and withholding documents they are required to release under the Freedom of Information Act.

The program also appears to rely disproportionately on minority cadets like Thomas.

“Their behavior in (Thomas’s) case goes beyond merely disappointing, and borders on despicable,” Skip Morgan, a former OSI lawyer who headed the law department at the academy, said in a letter to the superintendent of the academy in April. Morgan is now Thomas’s lawyer. The superintendent did not reply.

The Air Force also has not replied to a letter sent by Thomas’ senator, John Thune of South Dakota, in September asking officials to meet with Thomas.

While the informant program has resulted in prosecutions, it also creates a fundamental rift between the culture of honesty and trust the academy drills into cadets and another one of duplicity and betrayal that the Air Force clandestinely deploys to root out misconduct.

The Gazette identified four informants. Three agreed to speak about their experience with OSI. All had been told they were the only informant on campus, but eventually learned of more, including each other. Because of the secretive nature of the program, The Gazette was unable to determine its scope, but the informants interviewed by The Gazette said they suspect the campus of 4,400 cadets has dozens.

“It’s contradictory to everything the academy is trying to do,” said one of the informants, Vianca Torres. “They say we are one big family, and to trust each other, then they make you lie to everyone.”

Academy commanders declined multiple requests for interviews. OSI also declined requests for comment, saying in a statement it could neither confirm nor deny the existence of the program.

Gen. Mark Welsh, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, the service’s top officer and only commander with authority over both the academy and OSI, said he was unfamiliar with the cadet informant system.

“I don’t know a thing about it,” he said in an interview in October.

Members of the academy’s civilian oversight board, which includes members of Congress, also said they had not heard of the program.

Records show, for a time, Thomas was at the center of it. He worked major operations that netted high-profile prosecutions. OSI documents said he was “very reliable” and “provided OSI with ample amounts of vital information.”

Legal experts say informants are useful and commonly employed in fighting crime. But informants on college campuses are exceedingly rare, and other experts warn they have a corrosive effect on individuals and institutions.

“It changes everyone’s relationship to the whole institution because it erodes the moral authority of the law,” said Loyola University professor Alexandra Natapoff, who studies informants and the law. “There are rules — unless you snitch. People begin to question the fairness of the system. And it sets cadets against their fellow cadets. It can really change their lives, sometimes in ways that can be very harmful.”

The three informants who spoke to The Gazette said the system needs reform.

“I hate it,” said a third cadet who said he became an informant in 2011. The cadet, who graduated in May and is now an officer, did not want to be identified because he feared retribution by the Air Force. He said being an informant was the worst thing he has ever done. “It puts you in a horrible situation: Lying, turning on other cadets. I felt like a rat. OSI says they will offer you protection, have your back. Then they don’t. Look what happened to Eric.”

Integrity first

Thomas said his life as an informant started after an off-campus cadet party in 2010.

The Air Force Academy is hardly known as a party school. Incoming cadets face a barrage of rules. For the first several months, they can’t wear civilian clothes or even civilian eyeglasses. They must run at attention to class and sit at attention at meals, setting forks down before chewing each bite seven times. They live in dorms where TVs, microwaves, and even unauthorized pillows are forbidden until senior year. These long-held traditions, used at all military academies, are designed to strip students of former identities and instill the collective identity of the Air Force.

Any slip-up earns a cadet punishment and demerits. A cadet who amasses 200 demerits gets expelled. Any illegal drug use is grounds for immediate dismissal. About 70 cadets each year are kicked out.

Cadets are made to repeat the core values of the Air Force: “Integrity first, service before self, and excellence in all we do.”

They pledge to an honor code: “We will not lie, steal or cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does.” Telling a lie can get a cadet expelled. Even telling misleading truths, known as “quibbling,” can land a cadet in hot water.

The idea is to forge the integrity future officers need.

Even so, some cadets throw illegal parties off base, usually at houses rented for the weekend by a third party.

In fall 2010, Thomas, a sophomore, went to a house party near Divide. It was a typical college bash, he said, with pounding music, beer and cadets on the back porch smoking pot and a synthetic marijuana called spice.

The party was busted by civilian police. About two weeks later, the then 21-year-old said he was ordered to report to OSI for questioning.

OSI, formed in 1948, has about 2,300 personnel at bases around the globe who investigate terrorism threats, espionage, fraud, and other major crimes. Its motto is “eyes of the eagle.” Agents wear no rank or uniform. They answer not to the commanders where they are based, but to a central OSI office near Washington, D.C.

The academy has about 12 agents, but cadets say few students know OSI exists.

An OSI agent named Mike Munson brought Thomas into a small interrogation room with a one-way mirror and a microphone, Thomas said. Munson did not respond to The Gazette’s email requests for an interview.

Thomas said he wasn’t nervous. He was a straight-laced athlete from a strict home who had never done drugs and drank very little. The agent told him he was there only as a witness. He wanted to know who did what at the party. At first, Thomas gave vague answers, but Munson pressed harder, Thomas said, grilling the cadet for more than three hours: OSI had witnesses. They had proof Thomas knew more than he was saying. It was the cadet’s duty to tell the truth. Under the honor code, not turning in spice smokers was the same as smoking spice.

The academy teaches cadets not to question superiors, Thomas said. When OSI asked him to do things, he thought he had little choice.

“Eventually I told them everything I knew,” Thomas said.

Thomas’s experience mirrors that of Vianca Torres. At age 20, when she was a junior, she said, OSI called her in as a potential witness because she had gone to a party where other women had reported being sexually assaulted. OSI interrogated her for six hours, she said, grilling her not only about the assaults but about drug use and other crimes among her friends going back years. At first the cadet with a clean record said she resisted, but they pressed harder.

“They called me a disgrace to my country. They called me a disgrace to my family,” she said.

Sobbing, she said, she eventually told on friends and admitted to smoking spice two years before.

Before she was expelled, Torres said, OSI ordered her to delete all texts and emails showing the existence of her handler. In retrospect, she said, OSI just dragged out her dismissal so she could do more work as an informant.

“You just get used,” said Torres. “OSI gets what they want and kicks you to the curb.”

OSI has used similar informant programs at other bases for decades. But at the academy it has been using cadet informants for about 10 years, documents show.

Top leadership in the late 1990′s told The Gazette they were not aware of an informant program. Then in 2001,  the academy was rocked by high profile cases of drug use that resulted in Congressional investigations. That year an OSI officer named Keith Givens, who is now vice commander of OSI, wrote in the Air Force’s official legal journal, The Reporter, that the Air Force should use “a web of undercover agents and informants to detect drug abuse.” In 2003 the academy was hit by more scandals over drugs and sexual assaults that resulted in the removal of top brass. By 2004, court documents show, OSI was recruiting cadets as informants. Documents show that at least some academy leaders have knowledge of the program, but it is not clear if they know who is involved and what they do.

At the end of Thomas’s interrogation, Munson told him that the Air Force wanted him to become a confidential informant.

“What would I have to do?” Thomas asked.

“Just get in with everyone,” he remembers Munson saying. “Go to parties, flirt with females, be friends with everyone. That’s how you start.”

Thomas asked if it would mean breaking the cadet honor code. He said Munson told him there was no cadet honor code in this line of work.

Trust is at the heart of any honor code, said Laurie Johnson, a Kansas State University professor who specializes in ethics and honor codes. “By introducing spying I would think the cadets would believe there’s no trust,” Johnson said.

Worse, she said, if the Air Force encourages cadets to break the honor code as informants, it shows leaders have little use for the rules cadets are expected to follow.

Asked about the apparent contradiction between demanding honesty and using informants, an academy spokesman said: “A cadet has the responsibility to not only live by the honor code, but report those who don’t.”

Many people would find snitching on classmates shady, Thomas said. But he saw it differently. All cadets pledge to uphold academy rules. But some of his fellow cadets, who might someday lead the Air Force, seemed to have little respect for the pledge.

“I took that very seriously,” he said. “If we are not accountable to that standard, who is? But it was hard. You had to choose between your friends and what’s right.”

What tipped the balance for Thomas was a friend who had been sexually assaulted. He said he had watched her struggle when the investigation ended in a “he said, she said” stalemate. A confidential informant might have helped.

Thomas agreed to help OSI.

Agents made him sign non-disclosure papers and told him he could be thrown in a military prison if he talked about his work. He could not even tell his commanders, they said. OSI would notify them instead. As Thomas left that life-changing meeting with OSI, he remembers the agent saying, “Wait to be contacted. And remember, don’t tell anybody.”

Service before self

Thomas worked his way in with the party kids, troublemakers and other cadets OSI called “targets.” OSI gave him training on how to pass himself off as one of the “bad crowd.” He got close with football players who OSI knew were the focus of several confidential sexual assault accusations. He became tight with a guy from the sky diving team who OSI thought was selling marijuana.

Some cadets, he discovered, kept secret houses in Colorado Springs where they could store motorcycles, throw keggers, hook up with the opposite sex and do other things forbidden on base. He said he started going to house parties almost every weekend, taking photos on his phone, writing down addresses, and noting who was doing what.

“I’m not going there getting hammered, just hoping I’ll see something. I went with a specific intent,” Thomas said. “I’m blending in, not getting drunk, not flirting, just watching.”

He would call OSI to report his findings.

Then Thomas got a new handler late in 2011 and, he said, things got “much more intense.”

Thomas started getting texts several times a week from someone called “Briana”:

“Call me as soon as you can.”

“Doing an op tomorrow, call me.”

“Meet me in the bx parking lot.”

“Be sure to keep me updated.”

Briana was actually a stocky blond with a thin beard and glasses named Special Agent Brandon Enos.

Enos texted several times a week, sometimes late at night, telling the cadet to meet at a remote parking lot behind the academy’s B-52 bomber or some other secluded location, Thomas said.

Enos would be waiting in an unmarked black Dodge Durango to drive Thomas off base. OSI reports obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show Enos would discuss findings, plan strategy, and tell Thomas what to do next. At one point, before a planned drug buy, Thomas said, Enos pulled out a pack of cheap cigars and showed him how to roll a blunt and appear to smoke it without inhaling.

“The whole time I was like, ‘OK, I’m getting told how to roll a blunt by a federal agent; this is a different cadet experience that is not in the brochure’,” Thomas said.

Torres said Enos was also her handler.

Enos did not respond to requests for comment sent to an email address he used to communicate with Thomas.

Informing took a toll. Thomas said he often would not get back from meetings until after midnight, leaving little time to do homework. His grades dropped and he was put on academic probation. Because of the company he kept, he said he got a bad reputation.

“My chain of command thought I was a dirt bag who didn’t care about the rules, when the truth was the opposite,” he said.

Worst of all, he said, was not being able to tell anyone the truth. In college, when most young adults are forging their identities, his identity was a forgery.

“I’m running in all these different cliques, trying to be different people. It’s lonely, very lonely,” he said. “You put on so many faces that after a while you forget your own.”

The effect this large-scale deception can have on the informant is perhaps the most troubling aspect of the practice, said Martin Cook, a professor of military ethics at the U.S. Naval War College, who taught for years at the academy.

“Is it appropriate for OSI to use these methods in the Air Force? Yes, I think so. It may serve a greater good,” he said. “But is it appropriate to recruit young people into this at a key time when they are trying to form their morality? That could certainly cause problems the rest of their lives. That’s a harder question.”

OSI wanted Thomas to get in with a cadet named Stephan Claxton, Thomas said.

Four female cadets had reported being sexually assaulted by Claxton, Thomas said, but the reports were made using a confidential reporting system designed to protect victims, so the Air Force could not use them to prosecute.

Instead, they used Thomas.

“The idea was to track Claxton,” said Thomas. “We know he gets drunk and does this stuff. He’s a time bomb. It’s only a matter of waiting until he does it again.”

Nov. 5, 2011, was a Saturday. That evening, Claxton went out with a bunch of friends, including a civilian woman engaged to a cadet at the academy. Thomas was not allowed to leave base that weekend, but, he said, OSI urged him to tail Claxton, so he broke the rules and tagged along.

The group went drinking in downtown Colorado Springs. What happened next is according to testimony in the court-martial that followed.

The woman got drunk and passed out in the car they were riding in. No one knew where she lived, so the cadets took her back to the academy to find her fiancé.

At about 2 a.m., Claxton, a basketball player who had been out with them, and Thomas carried her down the empty dorm hall and put her in Thomas’ bed.

A drunk female passed out in the room could get them busted, so they went to find her fiancé and have him take her home.

Unbeknownst to them, Claxton stayed behind and locked the door.

Another cadet who had been out with them returned to the room and tried the door.

“Eric, why is your door locked?” he whispered to Thomas, who had started walking down the hall.

Thomas wasn’t sure.

He went back and knocked. After about a minute, Claxton opened the door a crack and asked what they wanted, then started to close the door.

Thomas realized what might be happening and pushed his way in. They found the woman, still passed out, with her shirt up and pants undone.

A fight broke out.

Other cadets who heard the noise burst in. Some pulled Claxton off Thomas. Some carried the woman to another room. Thomas fled and called his commander from down the hall.

Claxton was charged with sexual misconduct and sentenced to six months behind bars. The other cadets, including Thomas, were punished for the other infractions, including sneaking off base and having a female in the dorm.

Thomas said he assumed he would be protected by OSI.

He wasn’t.

Air Force records show the academy’s vice commandant knew of Thomas’ OSI involvement and ordered a special hearing officer to privately review the case, saying the normal discipline process was “not the right forum to discuss the more sensitive information.”

It never happened.

Thomas’ squadron commander, who Thomas said knew nothing of his involvement with OSI, recommended expulsion.

Thomas was stripped of rank and restricted to base.

Text messages obtained by The Gazette show OSI continued to direct Thomas to leave base to follow targets, even though he was restricted.

He obeyed.

When the academy found out he was leaving despite his restrictions, commanders were outraged at his contempt for the rules.

A cadet discipline board and an officer discipline board blasted him for a “history of disregarding the rules” and a “pattern of bad behavior.” The discipline boards recommended that Thomas be expelled. OSI told him not to worry, he said. They were taking care of things behind the scenes. He just had to keep his mouth shut.

“I couldn’t tell them what was really going on. I had signed papers. I just had to stand there and take it,” he said.

As punishment, the academy gave Thomas 309 demerits — more than 100 more than are required for expulsion. Commanders also ordered him to serve 186 confinements and 94 tours. Each confinement meant two hours of sitting silently in a room. Each tour meant one hour of marching with a heavy rubber rifle in a tight square in the center of campus. Thomas said he spent many weekends in dress blues marching from sunup to well past sundown.

The discipline board recommended that Thomas be expelled. OSI told him not to worry, he said. They were taking care of things behind the scenes. He just had to keep his mouth shut.

Operation Gridiron

Thomas’s work with OSI didn’t stop when he got in trouble. It intensified.

Phone records and OSI documents show he was in constant contact with OSI in the winter and spring of 2012.

OSI wired him up to record parties, he said. It had him delve into suspicions that football players got special treatment from professors, and gave him pens and lighters that were actually recording devices to take on drug buys.

He was pivotal in a major bust that made headlines and led to the expulsion of one of the football team’s star players, he said. OSI called it Operation Gridiron.

At 5 a.m. Jan. 12, 2012, academy officers swept into the dorms, banging on the doors of about 50 cadets, confiscating their phones and ordering them to get dressed, and report immediately to OSI.

It was the first phase of an operation to bust cadets using information gathered by Thomas during the previous year, Thomas said.

They had planned the operation for weeks and even made Thomas take a polygraph test to ensure his information was accurate, OSI records show.

The main target was a group of about 10 football players thought to be involved in drugs including the star tailback. OSI also brought in a handful of suspected party goers from the basketball team, soaring team and sky diving team. But, most of the cadets called in had done nothing wrong and were simply there as decoys, Thomas said.

Thomas sat in the group wearing a hidden recording device.

Over the next 11 hours OSI agents took cadets one by one from a waiting room to interrogation rooms, using information from Thomas to get confessions. One of them was a former fullback named Ryan Williams, Thomas said. Agents told Williams that his teammate Asher Clark, the team’s star tailback, had already told OSI that Williams had smoked spice at a party. OSI seemed to know every detail down to what he had been wearing the night of the party. Seeing he was caught, Williams confessed, then implicated Clark, Thomas said.

In fact, Clark had said nothing to OSI. The information had come from Thomas, who had been at the party.

Next, agents interrogated Clark and did the same thing. Clark confessed and implicated Williams.

Back in the waiting room, the two players started yelling and shoving one another, Thomas said, furious that they’d sold each other out.

Clark, Williams and five other cadets were kicked out or left the academy as a result of Operation Gridiron. Others were disciplined.

“My freshman roommate got wrapped up in it, too,” Thomas said. “He was caught with a house off base and almost kicked out. That really sucked, seeing a friend get in trouble and knowing I had a part in it.”

Terminated

Thomas testified at the court-martial of Claxton, who was convicted.

Documents show he also fed information to OSI that led to the 2013 sexual assault conviction of another cadet, linebacker Jamil Cooks.

“Those were the first convictions for sexual assault at the academy since 1997,” Thomas said. “What we were doing was working.”

Cadets with as many demerits as Thomas are kicked out in a matter of weeks. But Thomas kept going to classes through the spring and summer of 2012. Officially, he was told a computer crash had delayed his expulsion. Privately, he assumed OSI was helping behind the scenes.

At the end of August 2012, Thomas’ case went to a closed hearing with the vice commandant and other leaders — the final stop on the way to expulsion.

“I will come speak on your behalf about Claxton,” his handler texted a few days before the meeting. “You need people to see the positive and not hone in on negative.”

With this assurance, Thomas arrived in dress blues at the commandant’s office, ready to finally have someone explain his work.

He looked around the room. His handler was not there.

Thomas sat down and waited.

“Are you still coming?” he texted.

The agent never showed up.

Thomas went into the hearing alone.

“I got completely destroyed in there — perceived as a cadet who doesn’t know right from wrong, with no foundation of integrity, the polar opposite of what I have tried to be,” he said. “And I could say nothing.”

The board voted unanimously to expel him.

Thomas texted and called OSI during the next few days but agents stopped responding.

In one of the last texts Thomas sent to his handler, he wrote: “Is everything OK?”

No response.

Files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show OSI “terminated” Thomas on Sept. 10, 2012, because he “no longer had access to targets.”

Thomas eventually realized he was on his own. Desperate to prove his case, he requested his case records from OSI through the Freedom of Information Act. OSI said there were no records. He requested them again and got the same response. Nine months later, after a third request from Thomas’ congressional representative, Randy Neugebauer of Texas, OSI released 86 pages detailing the cadet’s deep involvement with OSI. By that time, though, Thomas had been kicked out of the academy.

“They lied to him. They lied when they said they would be there and they lied when they said there were no records,” said Skip Morgan, the former OSI lawyer who became Thomas’ attorney.

In the letter to the superintendent in April, Morgan said text records clearly show Thomas was working for OSI on the days he was being punished for sneaking off base, adding, “He was instrumental in drug investigations and sexual assault investigations. His reward was for OSI to abandon him.”

The academy did not reply.

Morgan, a retired colonel, told The Gazette that in his years representing Air Force cadets he has never seen such a case.

“This is a young man who really tried to do the right thing. It takes tremendous moral conviction. And they left him in the lurch,” he said. “They lied to him on several occasions. I thought that was shabby. I don’t care who hears that, it was shabby treatment unbecoming of a commissioned officer.”

Informants are a useful tool for the Air Force, Morgan said, but they must be treated fairly.

“If you don’t treat them fairly, you are not going to have informants. Word gets out real fast; don’t trust OSI,” he said.

The types of abuses Thomas describes are common in informant systems because there is almost no oversight, said Alexandra Natapoff, the Loyola professor, who is author of the book “Snitch: Criminal Informants and the Erosion of American Justice.”

The deals that law enforcement makes with informants lack the checks and balances of the rest of the American justice system, she said. “All kinds of things happen without public scrutiny: lying, corruption, and continued criminal behavior.”

Informants can be abused or lied to with little recourse, she said because law enforcement “holds all the cards. And in the end it’s the law of the jungle.”

Another concern, she said, is that informant programs tend to disproportionately target minorities and poor people with less access to legal defense.

The four Academy informants The Gazette identified are black or Hispanic.

Once Thomas realized OSI had cut him loose, he started telling anyone who would listen — his squadron commander, his master sergeant, his group commander, the vice commandant of culture and climate, the deputy commander, even his mother.

His mother, Rosita Perez Walker, was furious OSI had used her son as an informant.

“These kids are so young, so naive,” she told The Gazette. “They have been trained to obey orders. They are taught how to eat, how to sit, how to walk, everything. You say jump, they jump. To expect them to have enough judgment to question federal agents?”

She called OSI’s central office in Virginia to complain.

Soon after, Thomas got a call from his OSI handler, saying he wanted to meet at the OSI office and sort things out. When Thomas arrived, he said, the handler was not there. Instead, he said, the OSI detachment commander, Lt. Col. Vasaga Tilo, took Thomas in an interrogation room and yelled at him, warning him to keep his mouth shut.

In an interview with The Gazette, Tilo refused to talk about the confidential informant program, other than to say, “We use informants in the same way any other law enforcement does.”

Thomas kept talking.

He told Rep. Neugebauer. He told Sen. Thune of South Dakota. Both ordered inquiries. The Air Force responded to Neugebauer in June, saying that Thomas had worked as an informant, but not until after he got in trouble in his dorm room — a year later than Thomas claims. At no point, OSI said, was Thomas “directed or influenced in any way to break any rules.” The Air Force responded to Thune in August, saying while there were what it called “administrative errors” in Thomas’ dismissal, the academy “stands by their decision his expulsion is both appropriate and in the best interest of the Air Force.”

Thune then sent a letter to the secretary of the Air Force and the superintendent of the academy in September, asking them to meet with Thomas. Thomas has not heard from either.

Despite OSI’s claims to a Congressman that it told Thomas to keep clean, OSI documents clearly show agents repeatedly directed Thomas to sneak off base to go after targets and buy drugs while lying to commanders to cover it up.

While his expulsion was pending, Thomas kept going to class, hoping things would work out. He was accepted to Air Force pilot school and looked forward to flying after graduation.

He was kicked out of the academy in April, six weeks before graduation.

He no longer thinks the process took so long — 16 months from when he got in trouble — because OSI was working back channels to help him. Now he thinks he was strung along so he could work longer as an informant.

On his way out of the academy, Thomas got a tacit acknowledgement of his work. Cadets expelled in their senior year typically must repay almost $180,000 for their education. Thomas does not.

“Someone did him a favor,” said his lawyer. “Someone realized what he said was true and tried to repay him to some extent.”

By R. SCOTT RAPPOLD

[Editor's Note: Prosecutorial Misconduct/Corruption is rife, but rarely are those responsible held accountable. As in the O.J. Simpson murder trial, they frequently place disingenuous police officers/detectives on the stand who they KNOW are going to lie under oath. Judges typically ignore the problem. Worse, bribed jailhouse snitches are allowed to testify while a blind eye is turned to the credibility of the informant's testimony. This has lead, in the worst case  scenarios, to unjust convictions of murder and death sentences. Only a handful of states have laws restricting or prohibiting such tainted testimony. While prosecutors jubilantly carve notches in their roster of convictions, prisons continue to swell with the innocent as well as the guilty.]

There’s an old saying among prosecutors and police: “Crimes committed in hell don’t have angels as witnesses.” Well, meet Ronnie Archuleta. He’s no angel. He’s a five-time convicted felon. He’s been a fugitive. He’s 31 years old and has been arrested or cited 28 times. He’s also been a jailhouse informer — or “snitch” — and despite doubts about his record of telling the truth, he’s the kind of person authorities often rely on to convict other criminals.

In late October 1998, Archuleta was almost halfway through a six-month sentence at the El Paso County jail for check fraud. More charges were pending, and prosecutors were considering tagging him a habitual felon, which could mean 10 years or more in prison. Though a police detective called Archuleta a “chronic liar,” authorities ‘believed’ the felon when he said another inmate privately confessed to murder. In 1999, he testified in the trial of Kent LeBere, accused of strangling Linda Richards, whose body was found in her burning van in a Colorado Springs car wash.

By testifying, Archuleta earned early release from jail and probation in another felony case, and he avoided a habitual felon filing. His testimony helped send LeBere to prison for 60 years. But Archuleta now says he lied in court, that LeBere never confessed. He says police told him what to say and showed him their reports. He testified, he says, to get preferential treatment from prosecutors.

It’s the main basis for LeBere’s fight for a new trial. The case provides a rare glimpse into the shadowy world of jailhouse informers. They often lie — because it can get them out of jail or simply because that’s what they’ve done all their lives. And that has resulted in a string of overturned convictions across the country.

Several states have laws or jury instructions to limit the impact of the testimony of informers, who are widely regarded as the least reliable of witnesses. “People who are incarcerated are desperate to get out,” said Guss Guarino, executive director of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar. “Nobody wants to be in jail. Nobody wants to be in prison, and nobody wants to be there a second longer than they have to.”

By the time LeBere and Archuleta had their alleged nighttime jail conversations — over games of chess played with pieces made from bits of toilet paper — Archuleta had already made a career out of working with police. He got “connected with the Police Department” at an early age through neighborhood beat cops and worked for the Colorado Springs Metro, Vice and Narcotics Unit on minor drug buys. He made $100 to $300 a deal and, he said, felt he was doing something positive by taking drug dealers off the street. He testified to helping police on up to 50 cases.

But, Archuleta had his own legal problems, most stemming from bad checks he was passing all over town. He had convictions for fraud, domestic violence, bad checks, harassment, theft, forgery and assault. Yet, until 1998, he’d always gotten probation or community service, when others received lengthy jail terms. Between arrests, he worked as a bail bondsman, and then a truck driver. In jail, court records show, he used his bondsman experience to talk to other inmates, offering to help them set up bail. This was how he got to know LeBere.

According to Archuleta’s own testimony, LeBere was warned, by another inmate when he arrived in jail, that Archuleta was a snitch. But, he said LeBere confessed to him anyway. When Archuleta told a deputy at the jail he had information on LeBere — not long after his sentence reconsideration was denied — Colorado Springs police detective J.D. Walker met with him and agreed to help.

Walker went to the prosecutor and “told her that Ronnie Archuleta was informing on a murder suspect, and I think it was something to the effect of, ‘Is there anything that we could do for him?’” the detective testified in a 1999 hearing. Prosecutors offered to drop his charge from a fourth-degree felony to a sixth-degree felony, with a sentence of probation if he could pay restitution.

Six months after the trial, Archuleta called Bobby Lane Daniel, one of LeBere’s attorneys, and told him his conscience was bothering him and that he had lied in the trial. “He would lie on a dime or for a dime,” Daniel said in a recent interview. “This guy was pretty incredible. He lied to suit his own purpose, whatever his purpose was; and if his purpose changed, he would concoct another story.”

Legal experts say jailhouse informers have a place in the justice system. “There are times when good law enforcement demands you make deals with unsavory characters to get evidence against even more unsavory characters,” said H. Patrick Furman, a professor at the University of Colorado School of Law. But, he said prosecutors and police must ensure the informer has details that only the killer would know, and must do their utmost to verify the informer is telling the truth. “You are dealing with people who have flouted the law. They may have a lot to gain if they say the words prosecutors and police want to hear,” he said. Rarely are their motives for coming forward altruistic.

“In 36 years, I have never had anyone call me because they just felt the need to get something off their chest,” said Bobby Brown, a Colorado Springs bail bondsman and former law enforcement officer. “Jailhouse snitches are a dime a dozen, and as a rule I would really question their reliability,” said Brown, who often receives tips from the jail about people who have jumped bail. However, Lou Smit, a retired Colorado Springs police detective, said, “Jailhouse informants are used all the time, and they are a good source of information.” “If it matches the facts in the case and they have no other way of getting it, it can be reliable information,” Smit said.

In Colorado, it’s up to police and prosecutors to make that determination. A jury is not given any special instructions regarding a jailhouse informer’s credibility. Jailhouse conversations usually occur with no other witnesses, so it often comes down to the word of one criminal against that of another. And prosecutors acknowledge that, as witnesses, informers are far from perfect. “The use of snitches is something I think those of us in law enforcement are increasingly wary of doing,” said 4th Judicial District Attorney John Newsome. Newsome said he is immediately skeptical when someone wants a deal in exchange for information. “You have to start weighing the cost versus benefit in terms of your case, and you have to start weighing if they are telling the truth,” he said.

When the hammer finally came down on Archuleta, it came down hard. On May 31, 2001, he stood before 4th Judicial District Judge Thomas Kennedy and pleaded for mercy. He’d been picked up in Alabama five months before on three felony warrants for check fraud and theft, plus numerous misdemeanor counts of criminal impersonation, forgery, theft, check fraud and violating bail conditions. Prosecutors were no longer interested in making deals. “He’s been playing the system for an extremely long time,” prosecutor Krysia Kubiak said at the hearing. “And I’m not saying the DA’s office and the Police Department has not been complicit in this abuse of the system, but that’s what it is,” she said. “He has used his time in prison — in jail — and his sentences as a kind of Monopoly game to work off each other to see if he can get a better deal and if he can get out of all the crimes he committed.”

Judge Kennedy told Archuleta, “You know and I know that you have zero credibility in this building. Anyone that would put you on the stand would have a fool for a lawyer. You have caused nearly a reversal of a murder conviction next door; you have had police officers testify in open court you have no credibility.” Kennedy gave him the maximum, eight years in prison. Archuleta was released this summer after spending most of his prison time in isolation because of his past as an informer.

LeBere’s appeal is pending before Judge Timothy Simmons. The case has attracted the interest of a congressman from LeBere’s native Minnesota, who helped arrange for an international law firm to pursue the appeal for free. David Bergin, the Pueblo prosecutor who tried the case because the 4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office had a conflict of interest over Archuleta, declined to comment on Archuleta. Police have said his testimony was a small part of the case against LeBere, who admitted getting a ride home with the victim the night she died.

In a recent interview, Archuleta said he regrets being an informer and stands by his claim that he lied in the LeBere case to get a deal. “I wanted to take care of my children. I was at the point where I’d do anything to get out of jail,” he said. He recanted, he said, because his conscience was bothering him and he believes LeBere deserves a new trial. Since he has lied so much, Archuleta was asked, why should anyone believe him now? “There comes a time in a person’s life when you don’t hold their past against them,” he said. “We all make mistakes, but people do change.”

(CONTACT THE WRITER: 476-1605 or srappold@gazette.com USE OF SNITCHES)

No firm numbers exist on the use of jailhouse informants in criminal trials, but experts say it is common, especially in high-stakes cases such as murder trials in which prosecutors are under pressure to get a conviction. A report released last fall by the Northwestern University School of Law Center on Wrongful Convictions found that, of 111 death-row exonerated defendants since capital punishment was resumed in the 1970′s, 51 of the convictions were based at least in part on informants’ testimony.

Offering people deals in exchange for testifying is “tantamount to bribery,” said the center’s executive director, Rob Warden. “Anybody who has been given an incentive to testify, other than wanting to see justice done … This kind of testimony is inherently suspect,” he added.

The center is encouraging states to pass laws requiring electronic recording of any incriminating statements made to informants. No state has done so.

RESTRICTIONS

In response to problems with the use of jailhouse informants, some lawmakers and courts have increased restrictions on their use by prosecutors: – Illinois: In any capital case in which prosecutors are using a jailhouse snitch, a judge must conduct a pretrial conference to determine if the informant is reliable. – California: Whenever prosecutors have a snitch testify, a judge instructs jurors “the informant should be viewed with caution and close scrutiny” and to consider how much the testimony may have been influenced by favors or leniency from prosecutors.

Courts in a handful of other states, including Oklahoma, Montana, Mississippi and Louisiana, have adopted similar jury instructions. Courts in Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky, California and Illinois have determined that credibility of a witness — even an informant — is up to the jury to decide. The American Bar Association’s ruling body in February recommended that prosecutors carefully limit snitch testimony “ensuring that no prosecution should occur based solely upon uncorroborated jailhouse informant testimony.”

OTHER CASES

1989: Leslie Vernon White, a longtime jailhouse informant in Los Angeles, admitted lying in a dozen cases. A grand jury later found widespread problems with the use of snitches and complicity by police and prosecutors.

2001: Prosecutors in Colorado, Florida, South Carolina and Missouri dropped 26 drug cases because an informant who received $2 million in payments over 12 years lied under oath dozens of times.

2004: A state court in California threw out the murder conviction of Thomas Goldstein because of an unreliable jailhouse snitch, 24 years after he testified.

2005: A California man serving a murder sentence was granted a new trial when the jailhouse informant who testified against him was found by a judge to lack credibility.

Adam Williams After Jail Release

Adam Williams, a citizen of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, claims he is victim of police brutality. Williams and his brother were outside of a local sports-bar when the two decided to walk outside and wait for their friend to pay a tab. Once outside, the two say they encountered an intoxicated stranger who was urinating on the sidewalk. After a  brief encounter with the two, the stranger disappeared into the night.

Moments later, the head of security arrived and began threatening the two for urinating on the sidewalk. The two told the security guard that they had done no such thing and were simply waiting for a friend.

“Due to the fact we were breaking no laws, Jared (Williams’ brother) & I remained where we stood & continued to legally wait for our friend Dean,” Williams wrote in a statement to police.

The security guard called for police who arrived from across the street moments later. In total, 6 police began interrogating the two brothers.

The two told police what had happened, but claim police had little interest, as they continued to move in on them. One officer told the two to shut up, or they’d talk their way into jail. Williams says they asked police if they were being detained, or if they were free to go multiple times and received no answer.

“In moments, six police were surrounding us,” said Williams. One officer then yelled at the two, “Buddy, you ain’t being detained! You’re free to go!” However, while saying this, the officers continued to advance the two.

“It was clear we were not free to go,” says Williams. In fear of the sudden escalation, the two asked to speak with the supervising officer on duty. At that moment, Officer Keith Sanders stepped forward and yelled, “I’m the g**da**, fu****g supervisor! Don’t you know what this means,” as he pointed to his uniform patch.

At this point, the two told Sanders’ they would be contacting his supervisors to inform them of the rude behavior. As the two were told they weren’t being detained, they turned to leave. At this moment, officer Sanders reached forward and threw Williams onto the concrete. The officers immediately jumped Williams and began to beat him.

Police then took Williams to the detention center where they strapped him into a chair and slammed his face onto the metal table in front of him.

According to the civil lawsuit submitted by attorney Jon Rodgers, there is video footage police slamming Williams’ head into the table. The police department is being sued for personal damages, $5ook, and fees. Rodgers says that his client’s Fourth & Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated.

Police charged Williams with two separate counts of assault on an officer, resisting arrest and public intoxication. Once released, Williams went to the local emergency department where doctors suspected he had a fractured wrist. Once the lawsuit moved forward, the defendants offered to drop all charges and costs against Williams except one. ”I’m not going to settle,” says Williams.

Officer White was also recently engaged in an altercation with a city firefighter. Many are accusing officer White of using excessive force for punching Jerry Mosely, a firefighter living in the same county, multiple times in the ribs. (Video Below)

The police department released a statement stating that officer White’s actions were necessary. Mosely says the police department’s statement of events released to the media are untrue. [Before you kill a dog, 1st you call it 'mad'!...or after the fact when challenged--Cop Tactics 101]

Mosely and Williams have since been in contact with one another to discuss their unfortunate experiences with excessive use of force from a police officer.

View lawsuit papers here:

CIVIL LAWSUIT USDCTN

Nelson Mandela was sometimes asked how he was able, after many years of abuse and incarceration (which ultimately resulted in his falling ill with tuberculosis in the Robben’s Island prison where he and other political prisoners were held), to refrain from being overwhelmed by bitterness toward his tormentors while engaged in statecraft. His simple response: “Hate/anger clouds the mind. A leader cannot afford to engage in such self indulgence.”

Statesman, Leader, Reconciler

The Long March

“A critical, independent and investigative press is the lifeblood of any democracy. The press must be free from state interference. It must have the economic strength to stand up to the blandishments of government officials. It must have sufficient independence from vested interests to be bold and inquiring without fear or favor. It must enjoy the protection of the constitution, so that it can protect our rights as citizens.”

“If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don’t care for human beings.”

“The current world financial crisis also starkly reminds us that many of the concepts that guided our sense of how the world and its affairs are best ordered, have suddenly been shown to be wanting.”

“Gandhi rejects the Adam Smith notion of human nature as motivated by self-interest and brute needs and returns us to our spiritual dimension with its impulses for nonviolence, justice and equality. He exposes the fallacy of the claim that everyone can be rich and successful provided they work hard. He points to the millions who work themselves to the bone and still remain hungry.”

“There is no doubt that the United States now feels that they are the only superpower in the world and they can do what they like.”

“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”

“Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. YOU can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.”

“We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

“No single person can liberate a country. You can only liberate a country if you act as a collective.”

“If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don’t ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers.”

“When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.”

On Gandhi: “From his understanding of wealth and poverty came his understanding of labor and capital, which led him to the solution of trusteeship based on the belief that there is no private ownership of capital; it is given in trust for redistribution and equalization. Similarly, while recognizing differential aptitudes and talents, he holds that these are gifts from God to be used for the collective good.”

Unfortunately, Mandela’s life changed only a little in the world, because as he said, change requires a collective, not one man. People shouldn’t worship Mandela, they should act together and refuse their subjugation.

Consumerism, capitalism, materialism, the lust for STUFF, has become the cancer destroying family values, spiritual health, and tolerance for the human condition. What was conceived as a holiday respite for reflection and family has become the new rat race where success is measured by how much one can purchase/consume–the ultimate gluttony exceeding the girth of even its most corpulent advocates.

Shoppers flood into the Super Target at 4 am, in Midvale, Utah. Eager shoppers braved freezing temperatures for 9 hours, to be the first in the store to purchase the great bargains:

Women Get Into Black Friday Stun Gun Fight Inside the Mall:

Black Friday shopping can be hazardous to your health.

One woman apparently used a stun gun on another after an all-out brawl inside of the Franklin Mills Mall in Northeast Philadelphia.

Mike Napolitano was in the mall with two of his friends when they came up on the fight.

“It started out, one couple was fighting with another couple. They had words, the guys got into a fight and then the girls,” said Napolitano, who videotaped the melee. “One couple, they were like a family and all, with a young child in a stroller.”

The video shows the two women punching each other and someone in the crowd yelling, “No, stop.”

After the two hit the ground, fighting, you can hear the crackle of what sounds like a stun gun and see fluorescent-colored sparks.

“One girl just brought out a taser,” the 20-year-old said.

At that point, several people run up and pry the two women apart.

“Then security came over and I kinda left, you know, I was thinking, ‘God forbid if somebody has a gun or something,’” Napolitano said.

Mall security confirmed that a fight did break out in the mall around 2:30 a.m.

In a statement to NBC10, mall general manager John Ahle said security acted quickly to take control of the situation.

“An isolated incident occurred in the early morning hours between two female shoppers, that was quickly stopped by our security team, and both women were escorted out of the mall,” he said in the statement. “We are committed to the safety of our shoppers, retailers and employees and will not tolerate this unacceptable behavior”

The mall opened at midnight on Black Friday is remaining open for 18 hours. NBC10 was there prior to the opening and dozens of shoppers were already lined up outside, ready to take advantage of the day’s deals.

Crime data from Philadelphia Police shows 39 assaults took place at The Franklin Mills mall in 2012. That’s up from 32 in 2011. Robberies also jumped from seven to 19 over the two year span.

However, the data also shows there was a drop in shoplifting incidents from 287 in 2011 to 265 the next year. Vehicle thefts and thefts of property from inside vehicles were also down.

The stun gun brawl wasn’t the only fight during the holiday shopping kickoff. There were a number of incidents nationwide that resulted in injuries and arrests.

Police in Garfield, N.J. had to pepper spray a Wal-Mart shopper who was fighting with another man over a television.

In Southern California, a police officer was injured during a fight outside a Wal-Mart there. And a dispute over a parking spot outside a Virginia Wal-Mart led to one man pulling out a handgun. He was then stabbed in the arm.

Black Friday Zombie Shopping Stampede:

10 Billion Lives is a North American Tour campaign hoping to change your dietary habits, ethics, and our collective treatment of animals by offering $1.00 to view a 4-minute video clip showing the inconvenient truth about animal slaughter, animal cruelty, as well as the shocking images of how these animals are treated like so many potato chips.

They’re changing hearts, minds, and diets one viewer at a time! The organization seeks your donations, claiming for every $5 they’re able to get 4 people to pledge to at least reduce their meat consumption–sometimes to totally eliminate it from their diet.

According to USDA reports, nearly 10 billion land animals are raised and killed every year for food in the U.S. alone. Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM), is bringing this injustice to the country’s attention by showing the hard-hitting 10 Billion Lives video at college campuses, music festivals and street fairs.

Our dedicated staff and volunteers offer passersby $1 to watch the video – an outreach method known as “pay-per-view.” After watching, viewers are encouraged to decrease consumption of animals and work towards a vegan diet. The results speak for themselves – more than 80% of viewers commit to eating fewer animal products!

The following video contains shocking images of animal slaughter, cruelty, and violence:

Some students have campaigned to stop using cats etc. for dissection. One needs to eat lots of nuts, seeds, beans, veggies, fruit and whole grains. Junk food won’t cut it on a vegan diet (and really doesn’t on a meat diet either). Heart disease and cancer are absolutely related, according to scientific research, to a meat diet. Save your family – at least start by eating less meat!

If you don’t care about the animals, consider: there are over 50 ‘growth factors’ added to milk and current regulations allow 1 eye dropper full per cup of ‘extra-cellular matrix’ (pus from the mastitis infection cows usually have from being attached constantly to milking machines). Antibiotics are used to treat these infections causing bacterial resistance to antibiotics (AB) in humans. AB’s used in animals far exceed that used in humans. Cows’ udders are painfully 4x the size of normal to produce mother’s milk for a different species.

-Monticello, NY-

Moticello Mayor Gordon Jenkins, having been arrested for drunk driving, is shown (handcuffed to the wall) cursing, bullying/threatening the booking officer, using racial epithets as well as his position in a vain attempt to escape responsibility and accountability for his actions. In short, it is a prime example of yet another elected public official trying to use his office for special treatment…corruption on display in all its vulgar glory. Jenkins is also a local shop owner and previous corrections officer. What’s unusual in this instance is the opportunity for the public to view it–rare for what has become a police state in all but name only.

Drunk NY Mayor Curses, Bullies LEO

Jenkins joins a growing list of legally-challenged Mayors Against Illegal Guns members.

Spring Valley, N.Y., Mayor Noramie Jasmin (D.) was arrested in April for allegedly accepting bribes from an FBI informant. In March, Gainesville, Fla., Mayor Craig Lowe was charged with a DUI after police found him asleep at the scene of a car accident.

Marcus Hook, Pa., Mayor James Schiliro was arrested for reckless endangerment after allegedly firing a handgun inside his home during a drunken argument with a 20-year-old man.

Other current and former MAIG members have been charged with felony corruption, assault of a police officer, and child sex crimes.

Growing Movement: Expand Social Security or ‘Pay a Price’

Sen. Warren: ‘Social Security is incredibly effective, it is incredibly popular, and the calls for strengthening it are growing louder every day.’

by Lauren McCauley

Alberta Gaskins (Photo: Kevin G. Hall/MCT)

With Social Security cuts once again on the table in closed-door congressional budget negotiations, a growing movement has taken the offensive, demanding that lawmakers strengthen, rather than stranglehold, our social safety net.

A new survey by Public Policy Polling and MoveOn.org published Tuesday found that voters in 10 key swing districts “overwhelmingly” support raising Social Security benefits.

According to the findings, over 70 percent of those polled in each of nine areas said they oppose cuts to Social Security benefits, and an average 65 percent of those polled support an increase to the benefits. Further, almost 70 percent said they would be less likely to support a candidate who supported any cuts.

“Our results confirm that on Social Security, many congressional proposals and much media punditry have been far from aligned with the voting public,” said PPP analyst Jim Williams.

Perhaps more aligned with the voting public, on Monday Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) delivered a resounding speech on the Senate floor calling for a strengthening of, rather than cutting, essential safety nets like Social Security.

The absolute last thing we should do in 2013 – at the very moment that Social Security has become the principal lifeline for millions of our seniors — is allow the program to begin to be dismantled inch by inch.

Over the past generation, working families have been hacked at, chipped, and hammered. If we want a real middle class — a middle class that continues to serve as the backbone of our country — then we must take the retirement crisis seriously. Seniors have worked their entire lives and have paid into the system, but right now, more people than ever are on the edge of financial disaster once they retire — and the numbers continue to get worse.

That is why we should be talking about expanding Social Security benefits — not cutting them.

Warren closed with saying, “Social Security is incredibly effective, it is incredibly popular, and the calls for strengthening it are growing louder every day.”

As the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent postured, Warren’s articulation of this growing push against austerity cuts may provide a rallying call for “those who want to see the party embrace a more economically populist posture going forward,” with Social Security “becom[ing] a key issue in the argument over the Democratic Party of the future.”

Taking these demands one step further, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) put forth a new “Progressive Budget Blueprint” last week which proposed, among other things, cuts to defense and changes to the tax code balanced against progressive reforms to both Social Security and Medicare that would strengthen the programs.

As further evidence of a rising populist voice, last week a coalition of groups including National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, AARP, NOW, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Generations United, NARFE and Social Security Works rallied outside of the White House to protest against President Obama’s proposed Chained CPI, or Consumer Price Index, which he introduced earlier this year as an “olive branch” to Republicans in the ongoing budget negotiations.

“We came here today because the elephant in the room is a donkey,” said Max Richtman, President and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, referencing political party symbols. “The Chained CPI is in the president’s budget and we need to tell him that’s a bad idea.”

“We’re here to tell every politician, Republican or Democrat, peel away from your leader if you need to,” Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, told the crowd. “Do not go along with the Chained CPI [...] because you will pay a price at the polls.”

[The Chained Price Index (or CPI) ties Social Security COLAs (cost of living adjustments) to a much grimmer index instead of inflation as measured by the consumer price index because its proponents argue seniors simply switch to a more affordable alternative when prices rise. e.g. If the price of beef goes up, they switch to chicken...or pet food. It's a path paved with the bodies of the poor and destitute who have worked their entire lives for their 'just reward in the end'.]

Story line by Jeff Gray of photographyisnotacrime.com

Multiple recording devices, both audio & video, are needed by ordinary citizens in the face of any/all encounters with public officials because of their tendency to lie/exaggerate, even under oath and the penalty of perjury. Apparatchiks understand their official positions give them automatic credibility whereas the ordinary citizen has little or none in our hallowed halls of justice.

Coral Gables Encounter – Photo by Carlos Miller

Documenting public officials is a well established liberty protected by the 1st Amendment. Unfortunately, engaging in this activity can be very dangerous for the observer. Over the years, while running the Youtube channel HONORYOUROATH, one photojournalist has learned how critical it can be for your safety to record all encounters with public officials.

A perfect example of how a seemingly ordinary encounter with public officials can turn into a disaster for the citizen is the story of Rita Hutchins, a petite Idaho woman, who last year was requesting public records in Sandpoint City Hall for a lawsuit against the city when she was bullied by government officials, ordering her to leave.

She allegedly threw down a pen in frustration, which ricocheted off a desktop and grazed a city clerk, leading to her being charged with criminal battery.

Things spiraled out of control to the point where police raided her home late one night as can be seen in the video below.

Rita Hutchens, a middle-aged quilt artist from Sandpoint, Idaho, experienced the dreaded “midnight knock” — the hallmark of a totalitarian police state — as part of a Soviet-style campaign of official persecution. Her “offense” was to seek redress for being assaulted by a police officer in what was ruled to be an illegal arrest. (This is the teaser for a full-length documentary.)

If you don’t protect yourself by recording, it comes down to your word against the word of police, meaning you’re screwed.

Experience has shown in encounters with public officials, not only is it vital to record, but to record with multiple devices.

Police Lying Routine Rather Than the Exception:

On July 10th 2013 in Palatka, Florida, the recorded victim was cuffed and detained by Deputy Griffen of the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office while legally openly carrying a firearm. Even though Deputy Griffen terminated the recording on both of the victim’s cameras, the audio recorder in his back pocket went unnoticed, thus continued to record throughout the duration of the detainment.

As you can see in Deputy Griffin’s incident report, what he says happened and what actually happened are quite different.

CAMERA SNATCHING:

In June of 2013, Assistant Warden George Dedos of the Lake City Corrections Corporation Of America snatched this victim’s main camera from his hands and terminated the recording. Unknown to Warden Dedos, a back-up camera continued to record uninterrupted.

Illegal Arrest:

In a typical display of arrogant incompetence, the LEO in the following video argues that freedom of the press belongs only to journalists who are ‘credentialed’ and have the state’s blessing to act in said capacity. Of course, were it the case such permission was required, the press would not be ‘free’ by definition. This tautology appeared lost on this particular LEO and many like him. The violation of the photojournalists civil rights affected the LEO like water off a duck’s back.

Brevard County Sheriff deputies tried their best to intimidate PINAC editor Jeff Gray from video recording a traffic stop last month before they lost all patience and slapped the camera phone out of his hand, telling him photography “is a crime” (without ‘permission’) after he informed them he was working for Photography is Not a Crime. In fact, the press has no special privileges/legal rights beyond that of any citizen. But, it also has no less.

The LEO’s were unaware of a back-up camera on his ear, which picked up the action after his iPhone had shattered on the sidewalk. According to well established federal case law precedent, LEO’s who violate fundamental civil rights, such as this photojournalist’s, LOSE their qualified immunity status and may be held personally liable in a law suit or criminal prosecution for the same.

On October 23 2013, the victim was arrested by two Game Over Task Force Agents from the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office. At the point of arrest, one of the Task Force Agents struck his wrist with great force knocking the iPhone from his hand, shattering it on the asphalt. He believes the agents’ intent was to damage the iPhone so badly the recording would be stopped and destroyed.

At the time, he had four other devices recording. One of these devices was a dash board camera located in his vehicle. Three of his recorders were seized as evidence, but, the audio recorder and the dash cam were not seized.

It was the dash cam video which his wife published on YouTube the same day of his arrest. The YouTube video showed the arrest was questionable. It unleashed a social media frenzy and flood of calls directed at the sheriff’s office protesting the arrest.

It doesn’t take much money to invest in multiple cameras. During the Brevard County arrest, the victim was wearing an audio recorder on a lanyard around his neck, which costs less than $15, as well as a bluetooth spy camera, which can be purchased for $99, and a dash cam, which costs about $100.

PASS CODE & LIVE STREAM:

Sometimes it’s not enough to merely carry multiple recording devices. Countless stories on PINAC reveal police deleting video or losing the camera. If you record with a smart phone, you must have the pass code activated to protect the video recording from being deleted. It is also a good idea to use a live streaming app in case your phone is damaged or disappears. After the arrest in Brevard County, the reporter now uses the live streaming app called Bambuser.

A good example of Bambuser being used was during Pete Eyre’s arrest for jaywalking last month. He was able to continue recording, even after cops believed they had turned off his camera.

At all times carry at least three fully charged recording devices with plenty of available memory space. While most people aren’t going to engage in cop-watching activities, such precautions may prove cheap insurance to prevent you from being seriously victimized by the police (e.g. Olympia’s Scott Yoos in a trumped up charge of assaulting a LEO). It can also act as a prophylactic/cure for corruption in some violent street elements such as the more radical self described (A)narchists hostile to photojournalists. Odds are  high, today, most of us will experience an unwanted encounter with law enforcement at some point or violent street elements. It is best to be prepared and have in your possession at all times the equipment necessary to protect yourself.